- Newsworthy: First-Year GTAs Work with Faculty Members as Research Assistants
- ABD Colloquium - "What on Earth Happened at MLA?" and "What Does the Spring Job Search Entail?" - Today - January 26 - 12 pm in 8009 Haley Center
- English Symposium Series - Poetry Reading - Michael Hofmann - Thursday - January 27 - 3 pm at Jule Collins Smith Museum of Art
- Literary Dinner Hosted by Author Rick Bragg - Saturday - January 29 - 6 pm at EAMC Health Resource Center
- MTPC Oral Exam - Julie Anne Zorn - Thursday - February 3 - 3:30 pm in 3130 Haley Center
- English Hour - Keith Gibson - Monday - February 7 - 3:30 pm in 3104 Haley Center
- EGO Meeting - Wednesday - February 9 - 3:15 pm in 8009 Haley Center
- Robert Hughes Mount, Jr. Poetry Prize Deadline March 1
- Not Just Desserts - Lecture by Susan Lanser - March 3 – 12:30 pm in Foy 217
- Faculty Publication - Jon Bolton
- Faculty Publication - Peter Huggins
- Congratulations to Betsy Smith - Associate Fellow of Society for Technical Communication
- Alumni News
Newsworthy: First-Year GTAs Work with Faculty Members as Research Assistants
First-year MA and MTPC Graduate Teaching Assistants participate in a co-teaching program to prepare them to teach ENGL 1100 and 1120. These GTAs work with an upper level PhD student or Department faculty member in the classroom and also serve as English Center consultants throughout their first year at Auburn. New GTAs are also given the opportunity to work with individual faculty members on projects in research and/or technology or to continue their work in the English Center instead.
GTAs assist faculty on these projects for an average of 4 hours per week for 14 weeks in the spring semester. The faculty member spends some time providing developmental training in the specifics of his or her research or technology project and acts as a mentor to the GTA.
This semester, 7 GTAs are working as faculty research assistants. These students, along with the faculty members and projects they are working on, are listed below:
Barrett Gains - Bert Hitchcock, Biographical Guide to Alabama Literature
Tahmina Khanam - Pat Morrow, Anthropology and Literature
Xiangrong Liu - Jeremy Downes, The Female Homer
Jared Hromadka - Jeremy Downes, Marketing Poetry Manuscripts
Saiward Pharr - Alicia Carroll, Bibliography on Ouida's The Waters of Eden
Jennifer Reid - Tom Nunnally, Language Use in Alabama
Amanda Wood - Constance Relihan, Scholarly Edition of a 1620 Collection
Xiangrong Liu is eager to apply what she has learned in her courses to her work as one of Jeremy Downes's research assistants. This opportunity allows her to "gain hands-on experience in editing a scholarly text and develop broad familiarity with little-known as well as canonical texts by women, ranging from about 2000 BCE to the present, from a variety of languages and cultures."
Saiward Pharr finds her work with Alicia Carroll to be very beneficial for her graduate education. Pharr says, "The foremost benefit that attracted me to the research assistantship is the chance to work side by side with a professor on an in-depth research program. This is the best way I could imagine to thoroughly develop my research skills; as an undergrad I was very comfortable with research, but last semester I realized that I have a lot to learn about research for grad school. Already Dr. Carroll has taught me several “tricks” to research and, more importantly, the methods of thinking I need for graduate level research."
ABD Colloquium - "What on Earth Happened at MLA?" and "What Does the Spring Job Search Entail?" - Today - January 26 - 12 pm in 8009 Haley Center
The ABD Colloquium invites you to join them in discussing "What on Earth Happened at MLA?" and "What Does the Spring Job Search Entail?" Feel free to bring your lunch and a friend for discussion about what attendees learned from going to MLA and how to use this information to help prepare for the next job search.
English Symposium Series - Poetry Reading - Michael Hofmann - Thursday - January 27 - 3 
pm at Jule Collins Smith Museum of Art
Michael Hofmann - Distinguished Lecturer, University of Florida, British poet, and German translator - will give the first English Symposium Series lecture of 2005 on Thursday, January 27.
Hofmann has published 4 books of poems Nights in the Iron Hotel (1983), Acrimony (1986), Corona, Corona (1993), and Approximately Nowhere (1999) and a book of criticism, Behind the Lines: Pieces on Writing and Pictures (2001). He recently completed an anthology of German 20th century poetry, a selection of Durs Grunbein’s poems, and a translation of Canetti’s book about England, The Party in the Blitz (2005). For more information about Hofmann, please follow this link.
Hofmann will meet with faculty and students at 10:30 am in 8009 Haley Center, and lunch will be served in 8082 Haley Center at 11:45 am. He will then read and discuss his poetry at 3 pm at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art. After the lecture, he will join faculty and students for dinner at 6 pm.
Literary Dinner Hosted by Author Rick Bragg - Saturday - January 29 - 6 pm at EAMC Health Resource Center
Author of All Over But the Shouting and Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times national correspondent Rick Bragg will host a literary dinner on Saturday, January 29 at the EAMC Health Resource Center. Tickets are $50. Contact Faith Nance (826-8346) for more information.
MTPC Oral Exam - Julie Anne Zorn - Thursday - February 3 - 3:30 pm in 3130 Haley Center
Second-year Master of Technical and Professional Communication (MTPC) student Julie Anne Zorn will present materials from her portfolio and coursework.
MTPC students fulfill their degree requirements by completing an oral exam and portfolio presentation. During the oral exam, students present many of the documents they have created in their MTPC classes and that appear in their portfolios. Students also incorporate information from their course readings and discussions into their presentations.
Members of the student's advisory committee conduct the oral exam. Department members and guests are invited to attend and ask questions.
English Hour - Keith Gibson - Monday - February 7 - 3:30 pm in 3104 Haley Center
Keith Gibson will give a presentation on computer grading for the semester's first English Hour.
EGO Meeting - Wednesday - February 9 - 3:15 pm in 8009 Haley Center
The English Graduate Organization (EGO) will hold a meeting on Wednesday, February 9, at 3:15 pm. Department graduate students are encouraged to attend.
Robert Hughes Mount, Jr. Poetry Prize 
Deadline March 1
The Auburn University English Department is pleased to announce its annual Robert Hughes Mount, Jr., Poetry Prize, sponsored by the Academy of American Poets, and endowed by Mrs. Frances Mayes, offering a $100 prize for the best poem submitted by an Auburn University student.
Graduate or undergraduate students may submit up to three poems to Jeremy Downes's mailbox in the English Department, 9030 Haley Center. The contest deadline is March 1, 2005. More information about this contest can be found online.
Not Just Desserts - Lecture by Susan Lanser - March 3 – 12:30 pm in Foy 217
Dr. Susan Lanser will give a lecture entitled "The Sexuality of History: Sapphic Subjects and the Making of Modernity" on March 3. Her lecture, a part of the Not Just Desserts series, is sponsored by the Center for Diversity and Race Relations, Department of Foreign Languages, Women's Studies, and the
Philpott-Stevens Fund.
Faculty Publication - Jon Bolton
Jon Bolton's article, "Midterm Autobiography and the Second World War," has been accepted for publication in Journal of Modern Literature. The article compares the wartime generational/autobiographical writings of Isherwood, Orwell, MacNeice, Spender, Henry Green, Elizabeth Bowen, and Cyril Connelly.
Faculty Publication - Peter Huggins
Peter Huggins's poem "Audubon's Engraver," which was a runner-up for the Louisiana Literature Poetry Prize, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His poem "Sleigh Bed" is a finalist for the Mississippi Review Prize for Poetry.
Congratulations to Betsy Smith - Associate Fello
w of Society for Technical Communication
Betsy Smith has been elected an associate fellow of the Society for Technical Communication (STC). She will be honored in May at the 2005 International STC Conference in Seattle, Washington.
Very few of the Society's 24,000+ members are so honored. Auburn University is one of the few academic programs in the country with a Fellow (Donald H. Cunningham) and an Associate Fellow of this organization.
Alumni News
Jake Adam York (AU '94, former Instructor in the AU English Department, and currently Professor at University of Colorado Denver) has just won the Fifth Annual Elixir Press Award for Murder Ballads, his first book of poetry. It will be published this fall. Additionally, Jake's book The Architecture of Address, a work of literary criticism, will be published this year by Routledge. Look for Jake's most recent poetry in an upcoming issue of Third Coast.
To include an item in The English Channel, submit text items by Tuesday at 11:40 am for publication Wednesday. Submit items by email to Jessica Lueders or Betsy Smith or put the information in their mailbox. Please check your submission for accuracy and completion—all calendar items and meeting announcements must include the date, time, and location of the event.
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Last updated January 26, 2005